It's worth parsing Paul's guidelines: "builders who's chassis are winning races, used by top racers, setting trends, raising the bar, and/or influencing and inspiring other builders." This was amended in post #23 to focus on fellows looking for whose chassis they might buy or copy, and that narrower question needs a different perspective from the original. The fact that a guy might be asking that question implies that he's not real experienced as a builder or racer of Retro cars, and as such, may not have the same needs in a chassis as the "top racers:" those two groups might have very different and exclusive requirements indeed.

It's probably universal that the hotshots can wring every last drop of performance out of a car (and I mean whole car, not just chassis, because it's the entire setup that makes the performance), and in addition to being great drivers they usually are great tuners & setup guys, as well as knowing how to set up for any track on any given day; there's a ton of experience going into those qualifications, and it's probably rare for a fresh face to operate at that level. Just having a chassis that's built by, or looks like, or uses so-&-so components, is a very small part of the package. A fellow's gotta know that going in, as he makes his choices.

Same time, we've all discussed-to-death the dangers of putting a frisky, highly-tuned car into the hands of any guy not ready to handle it: too often, that ends with broken equipment, either that guy's or somebody else's. A fast car don't make a slow driver fast so much as it makes him dangerous.

I'm seeing this thread as more of a celebration of guys deserving the credit and the glory. I think the subject of whose chassis oughta be driven by whom needs to be more specifically framed, if it's gonna be really useful to guys who need to ask the question.